She and her perpetrator belonged to a mixed community of consecrated life called 'The Work'

A former nun from Germany has accused a priest who is a key official at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) of using confession to make sexual advances on her several years ago in Rome when they were both members of the same religious community.

Doris Wagner, who at the time had been a sister in a mixed (male and female) institute of consecrated life called “The Work,” told a Catholic women’s conference in Rome on Nov. 27 that she had also been raped by the male superior of the convent where she lived.

She and two other women — one from the United States and the other originally from Peru — recounted their personal stories of sexual abuse at an event sponsored by Voices of Faith titled, “Overcoming Silence — Women’s Voices in the Abuse Crisis.”

After Wagner spoke about her rape — which occurred in 2008 when she was 24 years old — she then told a hushed audience of the man who had made the sexual advances on her during confession.

A priest in the Vatican office that deals with sex abuse cases.

Without offering his name, she described him only as “a priest working to this day as capo ufficio at the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.”

That Vatican office’s role is not only to “promote and defend” Catholic faith and morals, but it is also the main tribunal that deals with the most serious offences against the sacraments, including sex abuse cases.

And the position of capo ufficio is equivalent to being the office manager. It is by papal appointment and stands in rank immediately after the top superiors (prefect/president, secretary, undersecretary).

The Annuario Pontificio currently lists three men holding the post of capo ufficio at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and only one of them is a member of The Work (known officially in Latin as the Familia spiritualis Opus — FSO).

He is Father Hermann Geissler, a 53-year-old Austrian who has been a CDF official since 1993 and a capo ufficio since 2009.

Wagner, now 35, actually confirmed this two months ago in a long feature on abuse in the respected German weekly, Die Zeit.

Groomed for sex during confession

At the Voices of Faith event in Rome, she claimed the CDF official intentionally “groomed” her for sex. It happened about a year after her religious superior had raped her.

“As a first step he [Geissler] had asked my (female) superior to be appointed as my confessor. And then he used the confessional for grooming,” she said.

“He told me how much he liked me and how he knew that I liked him and that, even though we were not allowed to marry, there would be other ways,” she continued.

“At some point he tried to hold me and kiss me and I simply panicked and ran out of the confessional,” Wagner recalled.

She said she immediately asked the community’s female superior to be given another confessor. The woman demanded to know the “exact reasons” for the request, so Wagner told her.

“I was extremely relieved she did not blame me,” she said. “Instead, she tried to excuse him by saying that she knew he had a certain weakness for women and that we kind of needed to put up with this,” she recounted.

(According to Die Zeit, the CDF eventually investigated the claims against Geissler and found him only to have acted imprudently. He was warned to be more prudent in the future.)

Doris Wagner told no one about the earlier abuse she suffered at the hands of The Work’s house superior until 2010. That was two years after it had taken place.

Blaming the victim

“I took a deep breath, pulled myself together — or, rather, what was left of myself, which was not much — and went up to my superior. When I told her I had been raped by the male superior of the house, she became furious,” she said.

“It was very clear that — in her eyes — I had committed a terrible crime. Her first question was: Did you use contraceptives?” Wagner said.

“She pretended not to understand that I was actually speaking of rape — she did not want to understand, she did not ask any more questions, but she forgave me.

"Which meant, in the end, my superiors were not considering any consequences at all. Neither concerning me nor concerning my perpetrator,” she continued.

“He is to this day member of the community, a priest, living in a house together with many young sisters.”

Wagner said she left religious life in 2011 thinking she was the only person who had ever been raped by a priest.

But as she read stories of other victims coming forward and a report suggesting that up to 30 percent of women religious have suffered abuse, she decided to denounce the abuse.

She also wrote a book, “Nicht mehr ich” (No longer I), which was published in 2014.

Her public testimony, along with similar revelations made by other men and women who had also left The Work, caused a media storm.

A regional leader of the religious institute at the time did not completely deny Wagner’s claims. He only regretted that “a priest of our community had a brief intimate relationship with a then 24-year-old sister.”

The Vatican's vague notion of "vulnerable adults"

The reference to Wagner’s age was not incidental.

Many Catholic dioceses, religious orders and even the Vatican have begun to admit that victims of sexual abuse can include not just minors (those under 18), but also vulnerable adults.

But there is still no clear definition — certainly not in Canon Law or any Vatican protocols — as to what constitutes a vulnerable adult.

The closest description is found in the 2010 revised Norms on the Delicta graviora, those more serious delicts or crimes against faith and morals that are reserved to the judgment of the CDF.

However, it does make clear that when dealing with serious offences, including cases of sexual abuse, “a person who habitually lacks the use of reason is to be considered equivalent to a minor.”

That would not appear to protect the likes of Doris Wagner or other vulnerable adults who have been abused by those in positions of power and authority.

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